Indian Shares Modestly Higher In Early Trade

4/13/2012 12:57 AM ET

Indian shares rose modestly on Friday, with positive global cues and rising expectations for an interest rate cut next week underpinning sentiment. Asian markets are trading mostly higher, with key benchmark indexes in Australia, Hong Kong, Japan and South Korea rising between 0.8 percent and 1.6 percent, as data showing an uptick in U.S. jobless claims fed hopes that the Federal Reserve will embark on another round of quantitative easing.

China's Shanghai Composite index is up a modest 0.2 percent after data showed the nation's GDP growth slowed more than forecast in the first quarter.

The benchmark 30-share Sensex is currently trading largely unchanged at 17,333, while the broader Nifty index is up 7 points or 0.13 percent at 5,284.

Among the prominent gainers, automakers such as Hero MotoCorp, Bajaj Auto, Maruti Suzuki and Tata Motors are rising around 2 percent each, lenders like ICICI Bank and SBI are up around 1.6 percent each, market heavyweight Reliance Industries is up 1.5 percent and copper producer Sterlite is gaining 1.7 percent.

On the losing side, Infosys is down a whopping 9 percent as the IT bellwether reported a 27.39 percent rise in consolidated Q4 net profit and offered a muted guidance for the rest of the year. Rival TCS is tumbling 4.2 percent, Wipro is moving down 2.9 percent and HCL Technologies is losing 2.7 percent.